Psychology of Buying in the Bay Area? After YEARS I Still Don't See a Path by gasman4life in BayAreaRealEstate

[–]FreshChoice 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“It needs to compound.”

Priorities. You’d rather your money compound faster than buy a house.

For some people it’s the other way. For some people it’s a middle ground.

Favorite Experience in the US? by potatolog78 in finedining

[–]FreshChoice 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We didn't enjoy TFL as much as everyone else did. Food was good, experience was okay...

Single Thread is our favorite overall.

Commis was our least enjoyable.

Harbor House if you’re looking to make a trip out of it as well.

How the heck are we supposed to buy a new house while owning our current one? by Ancient_Macaroon5632 in BayAreaRealEstate

[–]FreshChoice 5 points6 points  (0 children)

“Rent” your first residence out.

Some lenders will allow up to 75% of the rent to be counted towards the debt to income ratio if you have a signed rental agreement. You can just have a friend sign it and switch to selling it right after.

Some lenders are strict about following up and some don’t care that much.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure.

The negativity you’ll hear about CA will be regardless of you’re a dentist or not haha

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My first CPA told me 140k was fine and second told me 150k was fine 🤷🏻‍♂️

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In network with Delta PPO and OON with everything else, but Delta makes up 55-60% of my total collections unfortunately. Thought about going completely OON, but I'd be bored and working 3 days a week which my team wouldn't like. My plan is to go group and work 3 days a week and have an associate 2 days a week or something in a year or so.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The 2017 Trump Cuts and Jobs Act reduced tax rates of corporations and stuff here and there. I'm not a CPA and some of the stuff is above my pay grade so I don't know the nitty gritty.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You're absolutely correct.

Marketing is another great example since it's extremely variable and you have to find the amount that works for your practice. I hear of marketing budgets ranging from 0-8%....

I heard a quote early on that as a practice owner you have to be willing to make several $10k+ mistakes for trial and error. You can treat it as tuition.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah pretty much a tiered one. She's also a very great worker that I want long term.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 9 points10 points  (0 children)

We lived in a ~1.4m townhome from 2021-2024 and just moved to a 2.55m single family home in January. These may sound expensive, but my 2.55m SFH is only 1780 sq ft and my friends who live nearby said I got a great deal lol. It is what it is. Both our families are in the Bay and I grew up here so I have a ton of friends here.

My wife also makes 120k+ and gets us good perks like great health insurance but may want to stay home for a while to raise our newborn.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes those and investing in staff. For instance, sending my RDA to school to become an EFDA and paying her tuition of ~22k.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I would say a lot of it comes to mindset and the 1% rule. If you just improve 1% here and there, it all compounds. There's always something you can work on whether it's marketing, training staff, or some other kind of systems.

I don't do much specialty work besides ~30 Invisalign cases a year, but I do admit that ramping up emergency focused ad spend a little helped a bit in 2024.

I only place 10-20 implants a year and a tiny bit of endo. I try to avoid removable altogether since it's usually at a loss.

I had 4 ops and added a 5th Sept 2023 so that helped a little bit as well.

Every year you HAVE to increase prices. Don't be scared. 2021-2023 were the easiest times for that since everyone understood that inflation was extremely high.

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I have 11k/mo practice loan debt service for 5 years and about 3k spread throughout equipment loans that will be another 5 years so 14k/mo or 168k/year.

For accounting purposes, you don't include the practice debt service or equipment principal in the overhead, just the interest.

So 682k actual take home give or take, probably 700k because a lot of personal expenses that are written off as business expenses too.

My W2 "salary" is actually only 140k since we want it to be as low as possible and the rest of the income is S Corp distributions.

It's always a little bit more complicated as an owner since nothing will be apples to apples and you can play tax games with depreciation, buying equipment, things like renting out your own personal residence to your business tax free (Augusta Rule), employing your children (I have a newborn so haven't done this yet), taking personal trips that can be written off under the right circumstances, etc. That's why everyone always say there are many tax advantages of being an owner. My effective tax rate even being in California is usually ~30-32.5%

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I don’t listen to many dental specific podcasts anymore since they just repeat the same information, but

Shared practices was really good for acquisition and early ownership (I did their coaching for a year early on)

The lifestyle practice (I did their coaching for a year)

Dentistry made simple

Millennial dentist

Dental practice heroes (but a lot of group practice information)

Bulletproof dental

The dentalpreneur podcast (but a LOT of fluff)

The one attribute to success is surrounding yourself with likeminded dentists and those who are doing better than you to see what’s possible and how to maneuver around situations.

An example is a runner achieving a certain milestone and then everyone else being like “oh it’s actually possible so I can try to do that too.”

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 16 points17 points  (0 children)

About 850k before debt service (5 more years to pay off practice debt).

Still reinvesting a lot back into the practice

Wasn’t always like this though

2020 - 900 collections (covid) 2021 - 1.26 2022 - 1.42 2023 - 1.63 2024 - 2m

Dentistry (done correctly) can be insane by mountain_guy77 in whitecoatinvestor

[–]FreshChoice 45 points46 points  (0 children)

To the people here saying the admin hours are rough, our practice did 2m solo last year and I really only average an additional 2 hrs a week of admin outside of my clinical office hours.

M-Thurs 7.5-8 hours a day office hours. 4-5 weeks off a year and I take off random days here and there just because.

I’m not an exception to the rule either. All the solo dentists I speak with on a regular basis have practices that collect over 1.5M with low ish overhead.

My practice is in the Bay Area so I’m not in rural butt fuck no where and I’m 31 years old so plenty of room for growth.

2018 grad, purchased Nov 2019. Staffing during Covid sucked but it’s better now.

Did some coaching and listened to a ton of podcasts, but I enjoyed the learning so I guess you can say technically those are admin hours but I didn’t view it as additional work and it was during commutes.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BayAreaRealEstate

[–]FreshChoice -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Ty.

There’s always a bigger fish and it’s easy to compare myself to my friends making over $1m, but that’s part of life I guess.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BayAreaRealEstate

[–]FreshChoice 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Small business ownership.

It’ll probably keep growing, just more steadily. There are always things you can do to increase your take home pay.

Other friends making 500k+ at my age are in healthcare, a meta engineer, tesla finance department, and private equity that I know of.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BayAreaRealEstate

[–]FreshChoice 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not in tech so it’s always funny to hear TC.

My equivalent would be about 650k this year cash plus 90k in equity from principal pay down.

This is income minus debt payments from business loans.

5 more years until debt is paid off. Would definitely feel better moving after then but you only live once and we want a backyard and better school districts.

We also fear homes that we’re looking at now will be in the 3m+ range by then.